Kerry Flip-flops on Missing WMDs

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-05-2004
Kerry Flip-flops on Missing WMDs
36
Thu, 04-29-2004 - 10:32am
While the Washington press corps seems to have missed it, WABC Radio's Steve Malzberg has been playing a clip of Sen. John Kerry in his biggest flip-flop yet - showing the presumptive Democratic nominee suddenly admitting that Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction may soon turn up.

It's quite a turnaround for Kerry, who just a few weeks ago was complaining, "George Bush sold us on going to war with Iraq based on the threat of weapons of mass destruction. But we still haven't found them . . . . We were misled about weapons of mass destruction."

Key Kerry backer Howard Dean has been even more adamant, insisting to CNN earlier this month, "There were no weapons of mass destruction . . . This is Bushgate, which is far more serious than Watergate."

But Tuesday night on MSNBC's "Hardball," Kerry retreated.

"It appears, as they peel away the weapons of mass destruction issue - and we may yet find them," he told host Chris Matthews. "Look, I want to make it clear. Who knows if a month from now, three months from now, you find some weapons? You may."

Coincidentally or not, Kerry's reversal came a day after the Jordanian government announced that WMDs from Syria were part of an al Qaida plot to kill 80,000 people in Amman with poison gas. At least one of the plotters has admitted he was trained in Iraq.

The top Democrat's flip-flop also followed news that a suspected weapons of mass destruction production facility in Baghdad - disguised as a perfume factory - unexpectedly blew up, killing two GI's who were searching the plant.

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2004/4/29/100540.shtml

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Thu, 04-29-2004 - 4:51pm

>"Saddam HAD weapons of mass destruction"<


The US knew SH HAD WMD because they supplied them.


>"he will raise the issue of American support for Saddam for a decade, for shipments of anthrax, and Rumsfeld's goodwill missions to Iraq in 1983 and ‘84.

“This mass destructive weapons were sold to Iraqi government by the United States. And Mr. Rumsfeld has been one of the man responsible for this sale, for this bargain, for this market,” says Verges, who calls Rumsfeld a “traveling salesman” for toxins and poisons."<


Quote from........


http://kutv.com/topstories/topstories_story_116201148.html


>"I'm not one of those cynical people who thought Bush sent us to Iraq for the oil. To me, Saddam Hussein was always a Kurd-killing cockroach with a Hitlerian mustache. I never liked the guy -- not even when he worked for George Bush Sr.


It's worth going over the work the Butcher of Baghdad did for his Texas patrons when he was their butcher:



1979: Seizes power with US approval; moves allegiance from Soviets to USA in Cold War.


1980: Invades Iran, then the "Unicycle of Evil," with US encouragement and arms. (In fairness, credit here goes to Nobel Peace Laureate, James Carter.)


1982: Bush-Reagan regime removes Saddam's regime from official US list of state sponsors of terrorism.


1983: Saddam hosts Donald Rumsfeld in Baghdad. Agrees to "go steady" with US corporate suppliers.


1984: US Commerce Department issues license for export of aflatoxin to Iraq useable in biological weapons.


1988: Kurds in Halabja, Iraq, gassed.


1987-88: US warships destroy Iranian oil platforms in Gulf and break Iranian blockade of Iraq shipping lanes, tipping war advantage back to Saddam.


1990: Invades Kuwait with US permission.


US permission? On July 25, 1990, the dashing dictator met in Baghdad with US Ambassador April Glaspie. When Saddam asked Glaspie if the US would object to an attack on Kuwait over the small emirate's theft of Iraqi oil, America's Ambassador told him, "We have no opinion.... Secretary Baker has directed me to emphasize the instruction ... that Kuwait is not associated with America." Saddam taped her.


Glaspie, in 1991 Congressional testimony, did not deny the authenticity of the recording which diplomats worldwide took as a Bush Sr's OK to an Iraqi invasion.


So where is Secretary Baker today? On the lam, hiding in deserved shame? Doing penance by nursing the victims of Gulf War Syndrome? No, Mr. Baker is a successful lawyer, founder of Baker Botts of Houston, Riyadh, Kazakhstan. Among his glinting client roster, Exxon-Mobil oil and the defense minister of Saudi Arabia. Baker's firm is protecting the Saudi royal from a lawsuit by the families of the victims of September 11 over evidence suggesting that Saudi money ended up in the pockets of the terrorists.


And Baker has just opened a new office ... at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. This is White House first: the first time a lobbyist for the oil industry will have a desk right next to the President's. Baker's job, to "restructure" Iraq's debt. How lucky for his clients in Saudi Arabia. The Kingdom claims $30.7 billion due from Iraq. Apparently this includes their $7 billion send to Saddam to fund his bomb ."<


Quote from.........


http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/04/04/con04181.html

cl-Libraone~

 


Photobucket&nbs

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-25-2003
Thu, 04-29-2004 - 5:27pm
Defending your position on Iraq by quoting American hating, Bush hating socialist Greg Palast and Saddam's defense lawyer is truely a new low.

Renee

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-05-2004
Thu, 04-29-2004 - 5:28pm
Oh my gosh! Libraone, why did you leave out this part of the story???


No date has been set, but a few days ago, the Iraqi National Congress announced that a war crimes tribunal has been established to try Saddam.

But who would defend such a man? The answer is easy. Jacques Verges, an 80-year-old French lawyer, is known as "The Devil's Advocate," for his spirited defense of some of the worst monsters of our time.

Though he rarely wins his cases, he often succeeds in turning the tables, putting the accusers on trial, and putting them in the same boat as the bloodiest of defendants. Correspondent Morley Safer reports.

That certainly will be Verges’ tactic in defending Saddam Hussein: to attempt to indict the United States for its years of support of Saddam's Iraq. And to achieve that, he says that he will call such witnesses as U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

Verges loves the role of troublemaker. Though it's unlikely any of his witnesses would ever appear, he will raise the issue of American support for Saddam for a decade, for shipments of anthrax, and Rumsfeld's goodwill missions to Iraq in 1983 and ‘84.

“This mass destructive weapons were sold to Iraqi government by the United States. And Mr. Rumsfeld has been one of the man responsible for this sale, for this bargain, for this market,” says Verges, who calls Rumsfeld a “traveling salesman” for toxins and poisons..."


It is very VERY revealing how you picked up the quote here: "he will raise the issue..."

without the advance notice that this was propaganda from Saddam's French lawyer...unbelievable...

Also, I went to the home page of the second link you posted. Radical left-wing propaganda.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-05-2004
Thu, 04-29-2004 - 5:30pm
You know, Wrhen, I was blown away when I read this. Unbelievable..
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Fri, 04-30-2004 - 1:44am
As Kerry has said over and over and over again IT IS THE WAY GWB TOOK US TO WAR! He said they all believed Iraq had WMD. That is why many of them voted for the war. However, he had no idea that GWB would go to war without building the necessary alliances. He had no idea that GWB would go to war without exhausting all of the inspections and getting backing by UN.

One thing that tees me off about GWB is that he says there was an intelligence failure. Well..okay that is fine. IF THIS IS TRUE, why not FIRE the people responsible for giving you faulty intelligence. After putting our soldier's in harm's way when apparently there are no WMDs he should be quite upset. However, he is not. He just says, well Saddam was a bad man anyway. Why isn't he angry? Why isn't he demanding to find out what went wrong with the intelligence? Why hasn't he fired anyone? Why is Tenet still around after telling him that finding WMDs in Iraq was a slam dunk??? As Kerry said, one would think he would do those things UNLESS he is somehow involved. If he is involved with it he would not dare fire any of them becuase they would turn on him like Clarke and others did.....

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-05-2004
Fri, 04-30-2004 - 8:05am
Um... this thread is about the fact that there HAVE been WMD found, and they are very likely to now find more...Let's hope that they aren't found in the city where you live...
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-23-2003
Fri, 04-30-2004 - 11:16am

>>...the fact that there HAVE been WMD found...<<


"It appears, as they peel away the weapons of mass destruction issue - and we may yet find them," he told host Chris Matthews. "Look, I want to make it clear. Who knows if a month from now, three months from now, you find some weapons? You may."


Future tense...not that they have found them.



iVillage Member
Registered: 07-25-2003
Fri, 04-30-2004 - 11:56am
<>

Of course he has. Kerry has made an art out of covering every possible position on every important issue throughout his political career.

However, prior to his most recent statement about WMD possibly turning up afterall, he was villifying Bush for lying about WMD in order to lead the country into war.

<< IF THIS IS TRUE, why not FIRE the people responsible for giving you faulty intelligence. >>

All the various 9-11 investigations are looking into the intelligence failures to identify the problems and rectify them.

Renee

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Fri, 04-30-2004 - 12:26pm
Deceit and deception. Bush accused Saddam of it, indulged in a bit of it himself and now you manage to jump to conclusions that are based on conjecture and make comments like "there HAVE been WMD found" or "Let's hope that they aren't found in the city where you live". What the heck are you trying to do, use scare tactics to shortcircuit the thinking/questioning process? Sounds like D&D rather than WMD!

In Iraq, the building explosion that killed two American soldiers, while tragic (http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0429-10.htm) is not proof of WMD. I'm assuming that the following link will meet your stringent standards for freedom from left-wing bias: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,118356,00.html. If there were WMD in the building, one would assume that such an explosion would have had far more numerous casualties. Also, it seems likely that the Bush administration would be shouting the good news of WMD discovery from the mountain tops.

We all know Hussein HAD WMD in the 1980's. "The U.S., which followed developments in the Iran-Iraq war with extraordinary intensity, had intelligence confirming Iran's accusations, and describing Iraq's "almost daily" use of chemical weapons, concurrent with its policy review and decision to support Iraq in the war." http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB2/

It would appear that Al Qaeda or other copycat groups are set on toppling the governments of Saudi Arabia and Jordan. But as suggested in the following link: http://www.swissinfo.org/sen/swissinfo.html?siteSect=143&sid=4904953, Al Qaeda wants to distance itself from any action (like a chemical attack) which would take large numbers of lives in anything other than government agencies. The backlash from nongovernment fatalities would harm rather than help radical Islamic groups.

So does that mean that WMD will be found in Iraq in the days to come? I doubt it. With all the machinations of an election year, Kerry may think that the Bush campaign will pull a WMD rabbit out of its hat in time to sway the elections and he may be trying to position himself accordingly. But it's worthwhile to consider what David Kay didn't find–although he too has hedged his bets against what might be found in the future. http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/01/28/kay.transcript/

The following is NOT for any purposes but ROFLMAO:

http://www.whitehouse.org/news/2004/013004.asp

You can argue until the cows come home about who saw what intelligence. As Happy2beamom asks "Why isn't he demanding to find out what went wrong with the intelligence? Why hasn't he fired anyone? Why is Tenet still around after telling him that finding WMDs in Iraq was a slam dunk???" And if the White House/Intelligence community had all this overwhelming proof–where are the weapons and why did Bush use already questionable stuff like Niger yellow cake and the implication that 9/11 and Saddam were linked by juxtaposing them in his speeches?

It's interesting that all this vast concern for the dangers of WMD somehow manages to overlook the fact that over 125 US lives and who knows how many Iraqi lives have been lost this month alone. This "occupation" looks to me like it's as deadly as the WMD which may or may not exist. Or do those lost lives just not matter?

Perhaps it's time for the commander-in-chief to do some re-evaluating/flip-flopping of his own.

Gettingahandle

Ignorance is Nature's most abundant fuel for decision making.

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-25-2003
Fri, 04-30-2004 - 12:30pm
They found the formulas, all the ingredients, the labs & equipement, the scientists, the instructions on how to conceal them, the plans to maintain WMD capability and be able to gear up production quickly when the timing was right, the altered missiles to deliver them, and the orders to lie to the UN inspectors about what was going on.

Whether or not chemical or biological warheads eventually turn up is irrelavant.

Renee